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Jury Selection Begins Monday In The Murder Trial Of James Finney

Last updated on Friday, September 27, 2013

(BLOOMINGTON) - Jurors will begin hearing testimony Monday in the murder trial of James Finney.

Defense attorney Michael Spencer on Tuesday requested that jurors be driven to the scene of the crime, but Monroe Circuit Judge Marc Kellams wondered whether a field trip to the Pizza X parking lot was necessary.

Deputy prosecutor Jeff Kehr says jurors will be shown an overhead photograph of the area off Walnut Street Pike, police photographs taken at the scene and a video panning the southside parking lot where 22-year-old Adam Sarnecki was shot to death in November 2011.

Bloomington Police found Finney a few days after the shooting with the gun they believe he used to kill Sarnecki. According to Bloomington Police Chief Michael Diekhoff, police confronted Finney with a .380-caliber handgun they found hidden in a dryer vent in a Lilac mobile home where Finney had been staying.

Finney told police at the time of his arrested that he had shot Sarnecki because he didn't want to get in trouble and then ran from the scene.

Finney is also charged with the shooting a woman while she was walking her dog on the Westside of Bloomington on Halloween night. Finney told police he was not aiming at the woman, but her dog, when he fired the shot. Charges in that case will be dealt with after the murder trial, according to prosecutors.

Finney is also a suspect in the burglary and theft of cigarettes at the Smoke-N-Lotto store on Leonard Springs Road on the night before Halloween.

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